Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: needle is not a string or an integer in /home/deadonq/public_html/blog/index.php on line 41

Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: needle is not a string or an integer in /home/deadonq/public_html/blog/index.php on line 48

Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: needle is not a string or an integer in /home/deadonq/public_html/blog/index.php on line 61Buddy of DoQ: Thoughts on Life, Machinima, and Everything - Blizzard, can I borrow a dollar?

It just boggles my mind that so many people digg that game as much as they do, I tried it for a month but just didn't get it. Not on an artistic level, and really not on a gameplay level, just not my bag. (AHL 4 EVER!) But I've never been a Blizzard fan, they're always just a tad short on 'feel' to me. Like every game they make suffers from this sluggish... something. Like it's not quite responsive enough, stuck in second gear as it were.

Got me a new cellular phone today, wheeled and dealed until they let me pay 30 bucks for a 150 dollar blue tooth mp3 phone. Kinda nice, I don't like the flip top, but the blue tooth ear bud makes up for that. It takes mini SD cards, so I gotta find one for my music.

Speaking of music, placed an order last week for Freezepop CDs (Ready 2 Rock was a bonus song on Guitar Hero, and I fell in love with it) got them in Monday. I love it! Liz sounds so mega hot, and I want to secure rights to Outer Space for a future DoQ production.

Otherwise I dusted off my video editing skills for a bit of competition, you can follow the clues to figure out what that's for.

Basically they're banning animation produced outside of China in hopes to promote more Chinese animation production. While I agree that they should make more animation, as all countries should, I know that building a wall is not going to help in this case. Animation is not the Mongolian army looking to rape your women and steal your land.

North America (USA/Canada), Japanese, and Korean animation studios are the top in the world, amazing quality and insane quantity. As a creator of animation (3D in my case) I find much of my influence comes from outside. Bugs Bunny doesn’t do it for me like Ninja Scroll does. If all I had to go on was Bugs, there’s no way I’d be inspired enough to produce new and amazing animation. China, please, stop hiding your greatness from the rest of the world. Reach out to the rest of us so that we may inspire each other! Your culture is rich and deep, and to tap into that, one often must look beyond his own borders. I can’t tell you how many animations from other countries I’ve seen and thought, “Wow, if I could take that unique style and add my own (American) spin to it…”

Always well written, insightful, and I can't shake the feeling that DoQ's the mystical ground breaking studio he's always talking about. I don't think its ego this time, but an honest to goodness unwillingness to stop producing until we've shattered all the conventions, and have become that studio. A fundamental shift has occurred in the DoQ work ethic sometime in the last 12 months, I can't quite put my finger on it, but we seem to have hit a stride of creative madness that just feels right. Like everything before this was a house of straw, and we suddenly woke up one day in the little piggy’s weekend cottage of brick.

So where does that put the big bad wolf? The DoQ wolf has always been finishing what we start. We have a tendency to come up with great ideas that we let fester with inaction, or we discuss them at such length that they end up six feet under before we can lift the lens. A lot of that stemmed from being young and idealistic, with no idea where to begin with all this computer art jazz; we were just feeling our way around the world of film and game art for years. But if you feel around long enough, you’re bound to strike something…

So what makes us like the three little pigs? Such a classic tale, it depicts the trial and error method of mankind oh so well. When you first set out to do a project, logic doesn’t always come with you. Sometimes you have to build a house of straw and watch the wolf blow it down before you’re able to rebuild it stronger, better, and more creatively. I would like to believe that we are on our way to that fabled brick house, standing firm on the foundations of life’s education.

The world stands on the perpetual edge of oblivion, you can chose to jump into it with everyone else, or fight the bitter pull of gravity and attempt to concur it. It takes hard work, vision, and the wherewithal to see the deed done, but before you know it, you’ve got a film in the can. With luck, maybe it’ll be a good one.

I think the original point was this: For hardcore Machinima bloging, stick with Mu. For an insight on the inner thoughts of one of Machinima's many visionaries, that rarely post about Machinima, then stick around!

If you're not a follower of machinima.com you'll not care to hear that both Hugh Hancock and Ben Grussi have just stepped down from their leadership positions at the famed machinima mega site. Their roles have been picked up by an entity known as Machinima Inc. They did a brief Q and A a few weeks back, but I fear we didn't Q enough of the hard balls. With Ben also taking leave for as of yet unknown reasons (can't be boredom, this man is a Machinima machine and loves it!) it makes me all the more uneasy.

Dead on Que is getting to a point where we don't really need Machinima.com as much as we need AMAS, and I'm personally to the point that one foul move will be enough to make my self walk away from the site. Not that I contribute a whole terrible lot these days anyway. There was a time when I could fire off 1000 post solving 1000 problems in a single afternoon, but with game engine segregation and my new 3DMax specialization I find my self less and less helpful.

Is it time for a new focus for Buddy of DoQ? I'm afraid it is. The days when I came home giddy for Worldcraft (Valve Hammer) are long gone. Those died with Fake Science I fear, '02, summer of my level editing burnout. Hell it was our proclaimed last Half-Life hurrah anyway, that's why we went through with it so well. After years and years of pumping out unplayable maps and machinima tests, a real video to flex those powerful muscles was like the awesome explosion at the bottom of cliché car falling off the cliff scene. This was in 2002! Since then I've been to school, took up unrealED, did many unreleased models, maps and machinima using those skills. Now I find my self at a point where all I have to do is pick a project and I go kick it's fucking ass. Space Man Biff should prove that. Soul Meridian should cement it. SummerTech will remind me it's still fun.

I also find myself at a new crossroad. Just as last year I was wondering what to do with finding stability (work) I now seek something else. I managed to ignore it through high school, and even college, but now I can't turn a blind eye to it any longer. I need a girlfriend. Hell, I'm going to need something a lot more than that. If there's one thing I've always known about my self is that I morally cannot jump from girl to girl each week like my peers. That's always been a disgust of mine, a pet peeve beyond pet peeves, the old weekend date'n dump or 'one night stands.' It blows my mind that guys can do that to the ladies, rather uncivilized if you ask me. (This is rampant practice here in Dallas.) I just need one to hold my hand and tell me it's ok, you know, everyday.

Other than that, I've been practicing making characters come to life in 3D, brushing up on my Wacom+Photoshop skills, and generally making an ass of my self in public. Today my shirt is margarita laced Hawaiian, unbuttoned of course.